Biography

Since 1984 my field of interest has been mobile communications at large. I have worked on radio propagation for cellular radio and in microcells, radio coverage of tunnels and of mountainous terrain, and capacity enhancement for cellular radio by “Smart Antenna” technology. Our spatial channel models are based on high-resolution measurement of directions of arrival and departure of multipath components. We invented this “double directional” concept, which forms the basis of a detailed description of MIMO (multiple input multiple output) channels. Now, MIMO techniques are used to overcome the long-standing bottleneck that the radio channel has presented to high data rate transmission. We found a convenient way to characterize the correlation between transmitter and receiver over the MIMO link (“Weichselberger model”) and became acknowledged leaders in MIMO propagation channel modeling.

My group developed, designed, and built novel internal antennas and receivers for cordless telephony, including extensive design software. A highlight was a single-chip transceiver for cordless telephones, based on direct up- and down-conversion. We also quantified the bit-error-ratio in mildly dispersive mobile radio channnels.

I initiated research and teaching of mobile communications at our university at a time when its sweeping success was not obvious (1984). For over twenty years I conducted a seminar on Mobile Radio Communications, with international speakers from industry, academia, and network operators. Altogether I am author or co-author of some 190 journal/conference publications and I contributed several patents on mobile radio technology. I taught English for electrical engineering students, and that the products of an engineer´s work must be viable in the market.

R&D projects with AKG, Alcatel Germany, AMS, BMW, eplus, Kapsch, Nokia, NTTDoCoMo, Siemens München, Siemens Wien, and UNIDO produced tangible results. At the end of my career, collaborative research with Elektrobit, Finland, on MIMO Channel Models for 3G Broadband Wireless Access and Beyond was performed. Starting 1988 and continuing up to my retirement, a research cooperation with Telekom Austria and mobilkom austria has been instrumental to finance forward-looking research.

I have been actively involved in setting safety limits for exposure to RF fields since 1982, when I took part in a project sponsored by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Health and Environmental Protection. Resisting industry pressure to adopt safety limits – then in use in neighboring countries – which were 10 times higher that the upcoming ICNIRP values, I succeeded in convincing the Austrian standards committee to follow ICNIRP philosophy, because it was strictly based on scientific findings.

Born on February, 1942, in Vienna, Austria

1966 Dipl.-Ing.

1972 Dr.techn., both in Electrical Engineering from Technische Universität Wien

1985 to 1990 Chairman IEEE Austria Section
1991 to 1994 Council member of the Austrian Science Fund, acting as speaker on engineering sciences
1991 to 1996 Austrian Member of COST 231 “Evolution of Land Mobile Radio (Including Personal) Communications”
Since 1992 Technical Auditor for European Commission projects
Member of Program Committee of numerous conferences on mobile radio communications and microwaves
1996 to 1999 Board of Directors of the re-organized Post und Telekom Austria (PTA), 1999 to 2000 Board of Directors of mobilkom austria AG
Summer/Fall 1997 Guest Professor at Luleå Tekniska Universitetet
1997 to 2000 Chairman of WG “Antennas and Propagation” of COST 259 “Wireless Flexible Personalized Communications”
1998 to 2007 Member of International Advisory Board of the Competence Centre for Circuit Design (CCCD), Lund University, Sweden
1999 to 2002 Chairman Commission C “Signals and Systems” of URSI
1999 to 2002 Vice-President of Forschungszentrum Telekommunikation Wien (ftw., Telecommunications Research Center Vienna), which I initiated
2001 to 2005 Chairman of WG “Antennas and Propagation” of COST 273 “Towards Mobile Broadband Multimedia Networks”
February/March 2002 Guest Professor at NTTDoCoMo´s research laboratories in Yokosuka, Japan

May 2004: Retirement from Technische Universität Wien

2006 to 2011 Board Member of CHARMANT, a strategic research center about antennas, sponsored by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF), located at Chalmers University, Göteborg, Sweden.
2008 to 2014 evaluator of grant proposals to European Research Council (ERC), on Communications and Systems Engineering
May 2008, recipient of an Honorary Doctorate from the Faculty of Technology of University of Lund, Sweden.
April 2016, recipient of the EurAAP Propagation Award 2016 “For worldwide leadership and management of propagation research in general and specifically in the area of channel modeling for multiple-input multiple-output systems.”
Advisory Editor, Wireless Personal Communications